Next day was Friday, last day of the working week. Before work began the workforce were mustered in the main hut where Euan Mackinnon addressed them. Their mood was jocular, and Mackinnon waited until curiosity quietened the conversational buzz. When he had their attention, he began to speak in a matter of fact tone. His voice carried clearly.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you that there was a bad accident last night. Mr. Munro is dead. His car went off the road on the way home.” Mackinnon saw little reaction from the assemblage. Munro was a remote figure for many but understood by all to deserve unpopularity.
“I can’t tell you much more. No other cars were involved. Terrible thing to happen, eh? The police spoke to me this morning. They are looking for anyone who may have witnessed what happened or has any information. Was anybody here at the scene of the accident?” Mackinnon looked for a reaction amongst the men. One or two throats were cleared, but without comment. Silas stood tensely behind the crowded men, his face flushed, cheeks prickling. All faces were turned towards Mackinnon. He allowed the hiatus to develop a shuffling of feet before continuing, his voice flowing evenly over the faces grouped thickly in front of him.
Silas, curiously alone amongst the others, felt his throat constrict. So the tyrant had perished. All eyes were focused on Mackinnon, none on him. If only the Commission men knew, he thought, and a thrilling vanity elevated him. He felt exalted, then pushed both hands down into the pockets of his jeans. Mackinnon’s voice took on a new tone. The brief address was nearing its end.
“Ok,” Mackinnon wrapped it up, “better to get on. We’ll all hear more over the weekend,” and chatter arose as men turned away to begin another day’s work.
There was, unusually, lively conversation among the planting squad as Robbie drove them towards the moor, muscular torso angled forward, his eyes squinting in the low morning sun. He noted that only the local lad and the longer serving core of the squad were talking. More recent arrivals were keeping their own counsel, insufficiently time-served to speak, it seemed. In the rear of the vehicle, Ruairidh, Blue, George, Silas, and Louis sat in the rear of the vehicle impassively facing each other.
“That Audi was one hell of a mess, Johnny Mac was telling my dad,” the teenage Iain was contributing excitedly. “Fergus was at the accident. He was on duty half the night and called. You know how he stays with them. The car went over something lying on the road, but he didn’t say what it was. It happened just outside Strontian.”
“Maybe a tyre burst,” Guy said. “Munro drove like he owned the place.”
The landrover turned off the asphalt road and the squad rocked together as the well sprung vehicle bounded over an old track. Sunlight blinked through branches of trees as they passed and for a time nobody spoke. A pecking order, determined by length of tenure, was tacitly acknowledged in this group. Guy and Roland were therefore alpha, Noel and Alex beta. The reticent Silas was an epsilon with the others just gaining identity.
A subconscious arrogance had Guy change the subject. “Saw Mackinnon have a word with you, Noel. Was that about the saw course? Are you and Alex going?”
“No Torlundy saw course for either of us until August at the earliest. It’s Munro’s doing. Mackinnon said he had no problem with it, but he had to clear it with Regional. Munro wants, wanted, both of us to hang on here. We are breaking every planting record, Mackinnon says, and the office wants it to continue. We must take full advantage of the dry spell, that’s the priority.”
There was a period of sour reflection by the longest serving members of the squad, ended by Alex saying, “anything bowled at Munro ended up a dot ball. The man was a typical career bureaucrat.”
“Come on Alex, Munro was really quite decent, wasn’t he?” Louis didn’t wish to speak ill of the departed soul he had never met. He looked at the athletic figure seated opposite and regretted having spoken. Alex stared back without replying. Louis reddened and recoiled.
“Bit of a bastard, actually,” Guy condescended to say. This was absorbed in a further silence and the landrover continued to rock them. Judgement from the nucleus of the squad was not to be commented on. The jolt of a pothole particularly jarred those in the rear of the vehicle. George cursed. Guy ignored him and resumed, “The cutters went into Strontian last night for a pint. They took the spare van. Came back early, though. Didn’t hear about Munro until this morning.”
There was an easy freedom, a smugness in these casual reflections on the previous evening. Ruairidh glanced at George and gently shook his head. Blue stared at the planting bag between his feet.
“I was in Strontian, went over on my Enfield,” Silas said suddenly. “I saw the cutters in the Sunart Hotel. The two Archies were there. Young Archie was fine but his cousin was hammered. Munro had reprimanded him for bending a Skyline. He didn’t like it. That’s putting it mildly.”
This met with surprise, being an untypically lengthy statement from Silas who more usually gave the impression that he had taken out a reservation on himself. He had a Royal Enfield, and made lonely trips along B-roads.
“The testosterone twins were not happy then,” Roland said, hand resting on hip. Such casual nicknaming of the inseparable cousins would have been considered an impertinence coming from any of the later arrivals. This response, however, recognised Silas as time-served and therefore included.
“Older Archie gave a command performance all right,” Silas felt obliged to go on. “He became terrifically out of order. Sunart Hotel himself very nearly had a word with him.”
“That’ll be the day,” Guy growled, then flashed his teeth. “‘Nearly’ is as near as he’s ever going to get to slapping Cousin Archie’s wrist.”
“He’s not going to upset his best customer, is he?” Alex said. “Archie is a big meal ticket in the winter months when the hotel is dead.”
The two Archies were local stalwarts, a bull and a bullock, who muscled more timber out of the forest than any other pairing. They earned highest wages in the Lochaber region, but the older Archie’s alcohol intake, long spectacular, was beginning to affect his performance. Roland referred to ‘alcohol creep’ with heavy ambivalence.
Ruairidh, George and Blue continued to sit quietly. Louis stared resentfully at his feet, unable to look at Alex after the snub. Silas appeared animated by his talk of the night before.
Conversation ended. The landrover braked to a halt and the squad began to trek their usual shaded path, spades balanced on shoulders. They were soon hidden by birch. The ganger remained in the vehicle, his palms on the steering wheel, his face set. Munro had been unpopular. Nonetheless, it rankled that the untimely death of a Regional Chief was being treated callously.
The men reached the planting ground and began to disperse over sunlit moor. Iain and Silas trudged alone, the others in pairs.
George stopped beside a flagged trench, nearly emptied of plant bundles, and jerked his shoulder forward, still gripping the handle of the spade to guide it into the ground. Ruairidh paused beside him.
“Hit something on the road,” Ruairidh muttered. “That’s an odd thing for Fergus to say.”
“Don’t feel up to it today, somehow,” George said. “We only met Munro, what, twice? Not a popular man. Not a particularly fair one either. We all remember the refusal to pay for those extra plants in the Sitka bundles. A bit of a bastard, too, according to Guy. All the same…”
“Guy is a bit of a bastard himself,” Ruairidh muttered. “I’m bloody sure he enjoyed throwing that sack of puppies into the loch.” He recalled the lazy afternoon’s sunbathing bizarrely punctuated by faint squealing. A coarse brown sack had arced from a dilapidated pier to end the lives of five unwanted pups. Guy had not realised that he was being observed, and had paused to watch ripples spread on Loch Sunart while sunlight sparkled and danced over its surface.
Blue walked up to them, leaving Louis, whom he had been encouraging to persevere with an outdoor existence, to trudge on alone.
“No howling or beating of breasts,” Blue commented. “No sympathy or condoling …nothing. That’s a bit harsh of Guy and company. If Munro was a bastard, he’s a dead bastard now.”
“To hell with him. The crocodiles can weep at his funeral,” Ruairidh said, “there will be plenty of reptiles in the Commission. You heard the verdict of Noel and Alex. Munro was a little Hitler.”
George shook his head, “I doubt that Munro was that big a bastard.”
“Nobody is that big a bastard,” Blue said, “and certainly not that tweedy wee shit. I’m sure the tears will flow, if not today, then tomorrow, or next week. We need to grieve and get closure. That’s the routine line on death, isn’t it? Everyone trots that crap out. Guy and the rest of them should do the same, and leave it at that.”
“Shuffling off his mortal coil doesn’t elevate Mr. Munro from shithood to sainthood,” and Ruairidh filled his planting bag. He walked away. Brown dreels sprinkled with mica stretched ahead, awaiting the delivery of Sitka spruce. Long days of repetitive work. That was the trouble with planting; it bored him stiff, made him ill tempered, gave him backache.
“Need help, Scoop?” He heard Blue enquire in mock concern. “Has Guy upset you again? Is Roland making a move? Are you unwell?”
Ruairidh stared at the bearded enquirer. There were times when Blue had a facile capacity to irritate the hell out of him. It was enough spending an entire day bending and straightening… oh, what the hell …and it was his turn to cook an evening meal for all three.
“Go and boil your head,” he replied.
“Consider it done,” Blue responded, “but don’t burn the stew tonight.”